Jimmy Chin Wins Rowell Award

Climbing photographer Jimmy Chin has won the inaugural Rowell Award for the Art of Adventure. The $15,000 prize was established in memory of adventurers and photographers Galen and Barbara Rowell, who died in a plane crash in 2002. The award honors “an adventurer whose artistic passion illuminates the wild places of the world, and whose accomplishments significantly benefit both the environment and the people who inhabit these lands and regions,” according to the Rowell committee. Chin’s recent assignments have ranged from free climbing on the sandstone towers of Mali to climbing Mount Everest in order to shoot documentary video and production stills for the film to be based on Into Thin Air. This spring, he traveled to the Himalayas to document Ed Viesturs’ final 8,000-meter summit bid. An accomplished climber and skier in his own right, Chin has done first ascents and first ski descents in Pakistan and China, as well as numerous big-wall speed ascents in Yosemite Valley. Along with Conrad Anker and Rick Ridgeway, Chin was a member of Galen Rowell’s last expedition, which traversed the Chang Tang plateau in Tibet in 2002. His work there assisted in the protection of the rare chiru antelope. For more info, see www.rowellaward.com.